Gaming for Glory v2
by Yoshtar
Summary: I've found myself in a bit of a mess: I'm stuck on Remnant and my one saving grace is 'The System': I experience real life as if it were a videogame... thankfully, my one life skill is about to become my biggest asset. War is coming, and If I want to survive and avert the coming crisis, I'll need to git gud and then some. A rewrite and further development on the original GfG.
1. Lore 1: Metasoft

**This document was written as a sort of 'write up' of the lore behind the scenes in games such as GfG, so you lot could write stories in a roughly similar universe. Fanfiction of a fanfiction, as it were, back when we were so burned out and sick and tired of Cobalt Jinn that we didn't want anything to do with him for a long time.**

 **Now ~10 months later, we're attempting to write GfG 2.0, we figured we'd write this up anyways, and let you guys at it. Because why not. Feel free to ask questions, and we'll post other "Lore Interludes" in an attempt to answer them.**

 **If all works out well, we hope to see you again and again and again real soon.**

 _Hope you enjoy! Please send us any questions you have about the Metasoft Universe as a whole and we'll do our best to answer them in future Lore Interludes.-_ Seraphima, Co-Author and Beta Reader

 **...what she said -Yoshtar, the reason you're reading this.**

* * *

Metasoft was originally conceived in late 2019 by a small group of three developers and scientists who had designed their own game and wanted to create a company to publish it under. Those original three members were Gareth Smith, game designer; Alexander Myste, programmer; and Dr. Raven Myste, scientist and hardware designer.

The beginnings of modern Metasoft started in 2021 when the first incarnation of what would become the NEMO chair was created by Dr. Myste. It was a large and bulky device that would allow a test subject to interface their minds directly with computers, making it feel as if they were actually inside the games they played.

The applications were many and varied. Unfortunately the machines were expensive and delicate, and were so ahead of their time that often the only person who could actually operate the machines without killing the test subject was Dr. Myste herself.

It was the beginnings of full-dive VR technology, something eagerly pointed out by Gareth, saying it was only a matter of time before this sort of thing got smaller, more portable and had games developed around its use.

The word games got all three of them thinking and that led to Metasoft's first few projects. Alex was key at this time, working with Raven to get the NEMO working with the game engine, and building and modifying the engine with Gareth to produce the game itself.

Eventually, they had a prototype working, a game about acquiring superpowers and using them in a few dozen blocks of skyscrapers… and, of course, a little matrix homage which flooded the city with a few thousand suit-wearing clones.

People took notice when they showed off the tech demo, and had a few people climb in to show it wasn't bogus. Investors were interested in the technology. Very interested. Metasoft was soon approached with several offers.

After their first 'Suit' showed up, a Government Official from a 'classified branch of the CIA', it quickly became apparent that the full-dive gear would be useful to less-than-scrupulous individuals for cracking open the mind, and that if anyone with a NEMO lacked morals or a conscience, they could get up to some MK ULTRA level atrocities.

It didn't take long before Raven and Alex were altering the feedback systems to never be able to permanently influence the mind; a person 'drunk off their tits' ingame would quickly recover once removed from their chair. Then Raven obfuscated her plans, encoding them so only she could read them whilst the global scientific community were still scratching their heads at how she managed what she managed.

Raven continued improving her design until she discovered that she would be able to upload a person's entire mind into a computer, provided it was powerful enough to handle it. She started construction of what would be the first iteration of a Biological/Quantum Supercomputer, the first of its kind.

In December 2021, a family friend of Gareth's was put into Critical condition in an unfortunate accident. His body was dying, and there was nothing modern medicine could do for him. In a desperate bid to save him, his family provided Gareth and Raven enough funding to be able to complete the computer.

In early 2022, it was finally finished. Gareth's friend was hurriedly uploaded into the computer, saving his life before his body died one week later. He would lay dormant inside the computer until early 2023, when The Game was finished by Metasoft. He then gave himself the in-game name of Cobalt Lucis Jinn, and was placed inside The Game under the pretense of being a Beta tester.

By the end of the same year, Cobalt had managed to successfully introduce a fatal error into the system and forced a hard reset. Unfortunately, there had been an exceptional amount of data on the computer at the time and with the exception of a few hard backups, almost all of it had to be recovered.

It was over a decade before Cobalt's mind was recovered from its dormancy in 2034 and placed into a new simulation, with a new version of Gamer to try to prevent the unforeseen radical changes in Cobalt's personality having nearly unlimited power had caused from happening again.

When Cobalt managed to successfully complete that challenge, Raven, Alexander and Gareth decided they would reveal the truth of Cobalt's existence to him. Cobalt, of course, reacted poorly, but by that point had been trolled at every available turn and corner by the team that he took it better than some.

Cobalt was offered the opportunity to become a System Administrator for the game that he had been testing- which would soon become public. He accepted, and was quickly sent through a training course to help him with moderating and responsible use of admin powers.

The game was announced to the rest of the world to much fascination, but- thankfully for some- the rather high cost of entry and proprietary full-dive VR hardware needed- as a simple mouse and keyboard was insufficient and unsupported by the game- helped keep the trolls and weirdos to a minimum.

That wasn't to say there weren't people who didn't spin around in corners randomly, trolls, or a group of people who over the course of real-time years attempted to play 'kerbal space program' in one of the fantasy-verse servers to see if they'd bothered to simulate the moon.

Suffice to say, people were more willing to bite the bullet and join in after that story went viral.

Today The Game serves thousands of unique players a day, a number that is rapidly increasing as more and more people take a plunge and see what all the fuss is about.


	2. 1: Gamer

**So… Here's a concept I haven't attempted and then trashed 20 times already: Take Gaming for Glory, my most successful fic ever, and attempt to use what I've learned since I started it back in… 2015?! Wow.**

 **In 3 years, I've had some time to reflect on the failings and pitfalls I blundered right into, the memes and tropes that were 'edgy middleschool stuff' that I cringe at now and the merits of a greater focus and direction, and also some ideas I've observed since starting GfG that I wish I'd opted for originally.**

 **So, having changed beta readers a few times, and my latest, greatest and loveliest one having been upgraded to my co-author-**

 _Hello! 'Tis I, Saraphima! =^W^=_

 **-and with her help to filter though the ideas, keep track of plotlines and tell me that whatever I have is outright bad, I figure we give this a whirl and try and do Cobalt the justice I never did him in 2016-17.**

* * *

Movement and awareness are somewhat tricky in an infinite void with nothing to move relevant to, and nothing to be aware of.

Which meant that I was grateful for the beam of light in the world of formless nothing. Throwing comparisons to the 'journey to the centre of the heart' sequences of a well known game series aside, for lack of stained-glass floors, I approached what may have been the most boring and mundane setup for what struck me as something really important.

It was a simple wooden desk, like I'd expect to see in some executive's office, with a pen, several official looking documents with a lot of dotted lines and boxes to fill in, a mirror, and a locked attache case.

There was a flash of blinding light- and once I had blinked the spots out of my vision- I saw that a figure had appeared in front of me, lighting up more of the void as the being appeared to be made of molten gold, sitting in a large padded desk chair clad in leather that wasn't melting ro catching fire.

"Let's get this over with; I'm known as Aurum, and my masters have seen fit to give you some… special privileges." the being said, voice indicating she was female.

I tried to find my voice, but couldn't.

"This comes down from the top, dead guy. You're going to be one of our first for some new augmented reality system they've been cooking up. You know Gamer? Yeah, we're doing that." Aurum continued

"...like, Ryuugi gamer?" I asked

"Yeah, sure, whatever makes you happy Kiddo." Aurum said "Gotta say, you're taking the whole being dead thing rather well."

That caused a flux of various emotions that took some time to sort out before I merely said "It'll sink in later."

I noted that Aurum had come bearing a contract, but most anything made of liquid gold didn't strike me as demonic… but angels didn't come bearing contracts, especially not the eldritch horrors that were the Enochian 'literally anything but winged people' angels… and there really wasn't enough tentacles, mouths, eyes, or Sanity damage to really make me believe she was outright Lovecraftian eldritch either. The Fey folk were a maybe… but gamer was too logic-driven and rigid for the naturally unpredictable, everchanging Fey, and I would be surprised if fairies had so much as heard of vidya.

Having narrowed it down to some modern pantheon of polytheistic 'old' gods, I felt a little better, but was still wary of getting screwed over… because religion-non-specific god knows how many times that'd happened.

"So… what do you need?"

"Fill out these forms, look at the mirror to redesign your dumbfuck face, and then see if your stupid ass can figure out the tutorial and stash the attache case."

"Why are you so hostile?"

"Fuck you."

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed and looked over the form. If ever there was a thinly disguised 'Enter your character's name here' window, this was it. I picked out a name, pulling from an old roleplaying alias for some details. Oddly enough, my age was already printed at 17.

"That's for 'Story' purposes" Aurum explained when she saw me hesitate at that part.

I grumbled and got on with creating my new 'me'.

The mirror provided a more 'traditional' interface, 'holographic' buttons appearing around the hand mirror's edge, allowing for some really in-depth customisation.

Deciding I had no glaring flaws I really wanted to correct, and knowing I was design-blind enough to make that if I tried editing my face too hard I'd go flying straight into the uncanny valley, I decided I was probably going to keep my face and general look as it was- average height, thin build with some muscle, short, straight brown hair, a short 'bit beyond stubble' beard-, but still gave the options a once-over.

The temptation to fall back on the old Guy-In-Real-Life habits was surprisingly difficult to resist, but ultimately I decided against it. Instead I looked at the race options and saw a grand total of two: Human and Beastkin.

"Story." Aurum said

I sighed and looked over beastkin, and found some odd rules and a warning about being the target of racism, but at the benefit of great stat boosts- better senses in general, nightvision, boosts to my dexterity, agility and strength with no real loss in intelligence... Being the munchkin I was, I decided to make the mandatory animalistic trait a pair of bright blue fox eyes. They'd be hard to spot and I liked foxes, okay? They're cute… even if they were the canid (technically vulpine) equivalent of cockatoos (and other large noisy parrots).

Now a stealthily disguised Beastkin, I was presented a choice of weapon. Previous thought experiments and some debates had tempered my initial enthusiasm for spellblade styles, at least when playing Gamer. In the end, sacrificing endgame spellpower for physical prowess was just not worth it, and worse still, CoDzilla was still a thing you could do, assuming layering buffs didn't make your arms explode or something… and even if it did, cool magitech robot arms and telekinesis.

As I opened the tab to make my choice, I did a double take when all that appeared was a wooden stick that could loosely be called a "dagger". Not even a proper branch to beat a goblin or rat over the head with or shape into a crude warclub or blackjack, but a wooden 'icepick'.

And to top it all off, the thing was blunt.

It was official, I was going to do my level best to murder Aurum in her sleep.

"Good luck with that. I'm an essential character."

I grabbed the attache case as I began to brainstorm fates worse than death to make her regret her choice in immortality. A few quick tutorial messages popped up, and I followed their advice, using the menu that appeared on the underside of my forearm whilst I held a special handsign to access my inventory, the alrge panel appearing mid-air and moved the thin metal briefcase to my inventory. This opened up the storage, and dumped the attache case's contents into my inventory.

 **A New Beginning  
Find Headmaster Ozpin**

I immediately felt the need to perform the 'bows of frustration' at the realisation of what had been sat there, staring me in the face all this time.

"You fucking bit-"

There was a flash of light, and all Cobalt saw before disappearing was Aurum's shit-eating grin.

* * *

Cobalt Lucis Jinn stumbled as he appeared in a forest, quickly taking stock of his surroundings before freezing up when he heard a deep growl close behind him.

An Ursa rose above Cobalt, who immediately threw himself forward to duck under the bear-grimm's swipe.

"Aurum you bitch!"

Clawing his way up and away from the grimm, lest it slam its apws onto his chest and kill him that way. Cobalt scrambled for room to pick himself up and run. Unarmed, untrained, having never seen a normal bear in his life, let alone a grimm grizzly?

Aurum could get fucked if she thought he was going to fight. He wanted a big gun that shot chunks of lead measured in single-digit fractions of a pound before he took on an Ursa

Unfortunately, some kind of forcefield blocked his attempts to flee, and forced him to face the music... The music that sounded a lot like roars and growling.

If he couldn't run, then he was going to have to try something bold and stupid. Grabbing the stick, he followed age-old advice: "Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!"

Screaming his best impression of a warcray, Cobalt surged forth and got batted aside by a paw. Ignoring his scratches, Cobalt charged again and ducked back as the Ursa tried to slam him into the ground with its paws before attacking desperately with the stick.

Later he would question how he- a civilian schmuck- had the balls to do any of that, and discovered that Gamer's Mind was suppressing the worst of the fear and panic responses, and put him in the mindset of someone playing his life as a game.

* * *

Glynda's eyes widened in horror while she was flipping through video feeds, drawing Ozpin's attention.

"Glynda?"

She wordlessly turned her scroll towards Ozpin, causing him to freeze up and for him to drop his coffee mug.

They shared a look and Ozpin nodded. "Go. We can't let a Civilian get killed- today of all days."

Glynda nodded and leaped off the cliff, floating down like gravity's pull on her was lessened, pulling out her riding crop to clear her path and prepare for battle.

* * *

Desperate to win, Cobalt had taken several nasty claw wounds already, figuring the trade in health for another chance to attack the Grimm's eyes was worth it in the end, or he was fucked anyways.

Attacking once more, Cobalt dodged a swipe, twisted out the way of the follow-up charge and turned on his heel in time to get run over.

Now underneath the grimm, Cobalt was as good as dead, and he attacked it as soon as he possibly could, swinging the 'pick' with as much force as he could muster.

By some chance, instead of glancing off the armoured eye socket, Cobalt's stick struck straight and true, blinding the Ursa who reared back and roared in pain, freeing Cobalt.

Seeing an opportunity present itself, Cobalt grabbed a rock and leapt onto the Ursa's back before bringing it down on the end of the stick, and, like killing a vampire, drove his stake straight into the ursa's think-case.

As he rolled free of the collapsing corpse, Cobalt was in no condition to fight any longer and knew he was losing a lot of blood; but he'd done it. With zero experience, training, and with nothing but a blunt stick, He'd managed to slay a small Ursa. He'd gotten phenomenally lucky to do so, and he was under no illusions that by all rights he should be very dead, and was soon to rectify that if he kept bleeding everywhere.

Still, the relief was palpable, and Cobalt even managed a small whoop of celebration... right up until Mama Bear showed up.

Cobalt felt his stomach sink, and he prepared himself for death until A woman wielding a riding crop emerged from the bushes and grabbed it with what he could only guess was telekinesis, and snapped it in two before it could so much as stop roaring.

"I think I love you" Cobalt said in his delirium before passing out.

* * *

Cobalt awoke in the infirmary, to a rousing declaration

 **Welcome to the Gamer ARG v0.9.16**

 **You are well rested! XP gain and health regen x2**

 **You have slept in a medical area, rest effectiveness and well rested bonus x2**

 **During your sleep, you were trained in the skill Aura  
Aura creates an energy shield that slowly recharges outside combat**

That didn't stop Cobalt feeling terrible. With a groan he collapsed back into his bed. Eventually, he had to pull himself up, and face the music.

He groaned as he tried to sit up, dull pain lancing through him as alarms started beeping around him, likely calling the nurses and doctors. Cobalt paid them no mind, painfully shifting himself into a sitting position.

Instead of a nurse or a doctor, however, Professor Ozpin entered the room. At the same moment, a quest started

 **Playing the Game  
-Make Ozpin believe you are a potential major player in his game with Salem.**

"So, how are we doing?"

"I feel like shi- death warmed up, but I suppose that's to be expected. I don't suppose they left… I dunno about codeine, but heavy-duty paracetamol tablets would go down a treat right now."

Ozpin reached to Cobalt's bedside and handed him a pair of white tablets and a cup of water, and waited for Cobalt to finish.

"Thanks… now, I'm sure Ozpin the great and powerful has a lot of things to do in a day, and paying courtesy visits to randos- even randos who manage to down an Ursa- isn't the sort of thing you'd concern yourself with." Cobalt said, trying to sound like he was more experienced than he was.

"And what, exactly, do I concern myself with?" Ozpin asked

"The usual enigmatic finishing school headmaster stuff. You know, paperwork, dealing with student shenanigans, letting a certain silver-eyed 15 year-old girl join Beacon. You know, normal things."

Ozpin narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Cobalt "How much do you know?"

"That there's a buzzing, incessant reminder that the weave of fate swirls around team RWBY every time I look at them. And enough to know the would-be queen should be stopped as early as possible."

"You are precognizant?"

Cobalt made a noncommittal noise. "Time is not set in stone, ser. We are who we chose to be, and make our own decisions. As I move or peer forward in time, I can only choose one amongst the infinite sea of possibilities, an ocean vast enough to make even the most well-constructed minds pull apart attempting to grasp at its enormity. Not to mention that the very act of forecasting the future- as you are suggesting I do- would change it, no?"

Ozpin pursed his lips and moved to be in front of the window, facing away from Cobalt as he considered Cobalt's words.

 **You have gained a new skill!**

 **Bullshittery  
Level 22  
The ability to pull lies out of your ass and get away with it.**

Unknown to Ozpin, Cobalt quickly navigated his menus to get a bearing on his situation. He came across his settings menu and had to suppress an eye twitch when he spotted the option for Gamer's Body being set to off.

Visions of turning Aurum's fingers into expensive rings entertained him as he moved to turn it on. Immediately his injuries sealed and the pain all but stopped, dropping to a dull ache like he'd gotten a bruise instead of narrowly avoiding being mauled by a very large, very angry, and very evil bear.

 **Bonus Objective:  
-Pull a Batman**

Cobalt took a while to figure out what the system wanted, until he remembered Comissioner Gordon. Looking at the doors and seeing it was particularly heavy, Cobalt crossed out actually escaping, and went to his next best: hiding.

Looking around, and seeing no handy closets or anything, Cobalt went for the old classic. Making sure to replace the blankets to seem like he'd just vanished, Cobalt laid out the attache case he was meant to give Ozpin, and hid under the bed.

Ozpin turned around to ask Cobalt his next question only to do a double take at the empty room. Looking around, Ozpin saw only a metal breifcase that hadn't been there before, and curiously, saw that it was unlocked. Opening it, Ozpin frowned when all that was inside was some sort of plastic device with a small screen and a single button. Below it was a note that simply said "Use in Emergencies Only".

Cobalt stayed perfectly still, trying to avoid breathing too deeply for fear of giving himself away, watching his **Sneak** and his rapidly developed **Aura Suppression** skills slowly ticking up as he successfully hid himself from what he could only guess was some level 200-odd monster of a man; and listened as Ozpin called someone on his scroll.

Cobalt listened intently, ignoring Gamer as an **Eavesdropping** skill appeared and began ticking up from the 'super intense training' he was receiving in its use, and was glad that Ozpin had switched to video call. He purposefully didn't read it right at that moment because he knew that what Ozpin was saying was important, wouldn't be repeated if he missed a bit, and the human brain could only process one language input at once, and if he tried to read it he'd miss the conversation.

"Glynda, did you see our guest leaving the medical wing?"

"No. Why?"

"He must have teleported then" Ozpin said

"He's not there?"

"No."

"Who is this guest?" A voice that sounded like Ironwood said.

"Yesterday a seemingly random civilian appeared during Beacon's initiation." Ozpin informed Ironwood

"And this is important, why?"

"All in good time, Jim, but if you must know, he claims to bear some knowledge of the future, of Miss Rose's early recruitment. He even knew about who he called the 'would-be queen'. I suspect that's the person responsible for the attack on Amber."

There was a silence "What are you suggesting we do?"

"He clearly knows a lot that could hurt us if he joined this Queen he spoke of… but he came to us, and mentioned wanting to stop this Queen. I think we should leave him be for now. He could prove to be a very powerful player in this 'game', and it wouldn't do to scare him off. We keep an eye on him, and, if he proves to be genuine, we extend to him an invitation."

"Is that it?"

"Jim, you know as well as I that you can't cage a person who can teleport. Remember Raven?"

James grumbled angrily at the mention of her name.

"What if we have to kill him?"

Cobalt could practically hear Ozpin rolling his eyes.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, James. If his powers are as I suspect he could well be as powerful as me. You do not want to fight someone like that."

Cobalt made a mental note to rush out haste, dangersense and teleport spells ASAP. Cobalt returned to Ozpin's conversation to realise that he was walking out the room already. He listened as Ozpin walk out the door and he counted to twenty in his head before peeking out from under the bed and seeing the room was empty now.

Now he had to make good his escape. The window was the obvious choice, no doubt he'd be seen exiting from the door… and no doubt there were more than enough cameras to document the entire thing… so Cobalt quietly opened the window, and poked his head out.

"Remember: Just aim for the bushes… and do it better than Sam Jackson and the Rock did."

Cobalt carefully climbed out of the window, and using all his nonexistent skills in parkour, promptly got tangled up in the bushes.

Quietly ignoring the fact his health bar was now visible in the bottom left of his vision and angrily blaring at him, Cobalt stumbled from the bushes, scratches and bone breakages eliciting little more than a horrid crunching noise and a brief spray of blood.

Cobalt caught his breath and quietly choked down the pain as both his tibias and fibulas shattered and reset themselves in the space of less than a second. He still made a strangled, pained noise despite himself.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah… Aura caught the damage." Cobalt replied, half telling the truth.

Looking up, Cobalt stared directly into a face of that could only belong to Coco Adel. Behind her was the rest of her team.

"You jumped out a window. From three stories up" Coco said

"I said a few brash things and I'm trying to avoid someone whilst they cool off. I need to get into Vale so I can lie low for a bit." Cobalt said. The best lies were always more mis-truths and omissions than outright fabrications.

"Uh, sure." Coco said

"Look, I don't really have a lot of time… I need to make it to the airship pad, and the best way to go unseen is to move with a crowd… could you guys help me?" Cobalt asked, trying to look convincing and hoping his charisma check came through okay.

* * *

As Cobalt said his goodbyes to team CFVY and boarded the airship, he couldn't help himself but look for one of the cameras. Finding one pointed straight at him, he couldn't' resist being cheeky, and waved directly at it with a big self-assured grin.


	3. 2: New Beginnings

Cobalt went over his situation again.

He needed food, shelter and information. All three of those things tended to cost money, and lots of it. To get money or things he could sell for money he needed useful skills... Skills to pay Bills. That was a simple fact of economics.

Either that, or he had to get people to give him money, and that meant he had to beg, borrow or steal. Cobalt filed that under option C. B wasn't a thing yet, but he wanted the option open in case he had two _good_ ideas.

He considered what he wanted to do. He could just put out word that there was a freelancer for hire in town, willing to do odd jobs. The 'standard' adventurer occupation. No cellar-dwelling rat too big or dire to handle. No hoard of loot too lost or ancient or behind too many traps to not steal like the grave-robbing murderhobo he was at heart.

He could see about getting a little dirt on his nose, and look into surface-level criminal jobs. Carrying packages and courier work would be ideal. The problem was that he would be getting involved in a criminal underworld, and that carried a lot of risks, especially early on before gamer truly catapulted him into being able to shout about unlimited power and magic lightning hands people to death. Didn't that one movie start when they tried to 'roll' a package courier?

Or he could look at the VPD or a Mercenary Company. The problem with being a cop was that they tended to vet pretty hard in his experience, and Cobalt's current lack of records, lack of a place of current residence and more would likely see him denied and then looked into. Then again, the VPD was supposedly unmotivated in the extreme.

The Merc Company was promising, but enlisting would likely see him taken away from Vale and any chance to influence the story until he got back. That alone made him consider it a 'plan B'.

Cobalt decided to give the VPD a try before signing his life away on more risky ventures.

* * *

Cobalt availed himself of the local library to do some research. Knowing is always half the battle, as cheesy as that catchphrase is. It didn't take long to figure out the Vale Police Department was- as he expected- infamously unmotivated, and usually ill-equipped to tackle the slew of organised crime syndicates that more or less called Vale home; or crack down on the White Fang for that matter.

Cobalt was surprised when he saw that there was actually a test he could do online to become a VPD recruit. He grinned at the possibility of being the single most competent police officer on the force, and cracked his knuckles.

The personal details section was barebones as hell, and it didn't take long for Cobalt to have an account set up on the website, or for him to be taking the questions, or giving them answers they wanted to hear, answering tricky personality questions about moral fortitude, and more. And then they'd asked him if his aura was unlocked.

Upon answering yes, he was met with the 'application accepted' screen... It was honestly too easy. Cobalt kept expecting there to be more, that the other shoe had yet to drop. Instead, he was given directions to the academy, a form with his results on them, and told to report.

He couldn't believe it. It was that easy? How the hell was the police force not corrupt as hell and full of undercover double agents?

Cobalt realised it probably was, and he'd need to keep a careful eye on his fellow officers, lest he wake up dead after stepping on someone's toes.

* * *

"You're a new recruit?" the man at the front desk asked

Cobalt nodded

"Says here you've got aura"

"That's right" Cobalt said, flaring it enough to prove he was the genuine article.

"Welcome aboard. Here's your badge and gunscroll."

"That's… that's it?" Cobalt asked, incredulous

"That's it."

"No questions who I am, no academy training… none of that?"

"I'm told to just wave you hunter folk on through, and between you and me, because you have aura, you could trounce anyone here."

Cobalt wasn't going to argue with that. He wanted to, he _really_ wanted to, but he had a head on his shoulders and a brain occupying the space between its ears. It struck him as lazy and sloppy as hell, and he would be personally amazed if corruption didn't run a mile deep here.

"Barracks is right on through, third door on the left. Find an empty bed. Uniform's in the footlocker, best to put your name on that as soon as possible." the recruiter said

Cobalt took the weapon and the badge and followed the man's instructions.

* * *

Cobalt was sitting on his bed figuring out how to disassemble and clean his gun as he considered his situation once more. He was a police officer now. That meant exactly squat: The police were lazy slobs, and more than likely corrupt.

He'd been cheated of the training he'd hoped to undergo. He'd have to figure that out himself.

Cobalt really didn't want to grind out in the forests and landscapes outside Vale. Leave that to people with actual hunter training. He was just an average peon.

 **New Quest Received!  
Story Quest: The Hunters Path  
You need to gain experience. What better way than by the tried-and-true method of killing the Grimm in a forest?**

Cobalt gave a deadpan stare at the new quest marker, eye twitching slightly.

Sighing, he guessed there was nothing for it. Reassembling his gun, Cobalt checked the load before looking for the armoury and stealing several mags of ammo whilst the quartermaster was out for a smoke break. He looked dubiously at the ammo tin that was covered in cobwebs as well before helping himself to a few hundred spare bullets too, and praying they didn't explode inside his gun. They shouldn't but old ammo was called unreliable for a reason.

Sneaking out of the academy, Cobalt took as direct a route out of Vale as possible, and marched towards his second encounter with doom, fully prepared to run the second he saw anything with an 'alpha' or 'major' tag appended to it… god forbid a 'mutant' one.

He heard bushes rustling nearby and tensed himself for a fight, only to blink in surprise when a young beowolf barely as tall as his knee growled at him in a manner he was tempted to describe as 'cute'. The pup's existence brought so many things into question, like 'how did this thing crawl out of Salem's vats?' and 'where's the mother?' and- OW!

Cobalt shook the beowolf pup off his ankle with an angry glare and raised his pistol to shoot it in the face. Confetti sprayed over the rapidly dissolving corpse as Cobalt levelled up again, and reminded him that he needed to check his stats.

Sitting on a stump Cobalt swiftly found the page titled 'stats and levels.' He took one look at them, and all he could say was that he was impressed they had measured so many metrics… unfortunately, he was also looking at an over-complicated mess that he was 90% certain was almost entirely redundant, or that they'd introduced stats for single mechanical effects, splitting endurance into constitution, endurance, vitality and vigor… thankfully, like a spreadsheet, Cobalt could see the various percentages increase when he temporarily messed around with the points before locking them in, which told him that each stat was respectively for his status effect resistances, stamina pool, health pool and carry weight.

 **Cobalt Jinn  
Level 9 Faunus Gamer**

 **Gender: Male; Eye/Hair: Blue/Brown, Height: 6'0" (1.83 m)  
Faunus Trait: Fox (eyes)**

 **Skill Points: 45  
Strength: 10  
Constitution: 10  
Endurance: 10  
Vitality: 10  
Vigor: 10  
Perception: 10  
Insight: 10  
Dexterity: 10  
Agility: 10  
Intelligence: 10  
Knowledge: 10  
Wisdom: 10  
Insight: 10  
Luck: 10**

 **XP to next level: 7,325/9,000xp**

Cobalt felt physically ill at seeing the overcomplicated stats. He was no masterclass game-engineer able to put together the next Metal Gear Solid 3, but even he knew that turn-based JRPGs had half this many different statistics, let alone real-time action RPGs that focused on skill use and actual reaction times than thoughtful, strategic gameplay.

And then going over each stats description there was a modifier to his to-hit chance. That outright infuriated Cobalt, that had no business in an action RPG whatsoever, and then his health ticked up by a not-insignificant amount. Investigating, and with some quick napkin maths, Cobalt realised that there was a strong chance his aura's regeneration was only updating once every minute.

Normally, Cobalt was not a person to complain at the devs, but this needed addressing, badly. It didn't take long to find a 'report a bug' feature buried in the menu and draft a strongly worded letter about game design and threw in a yarn about admin misbehaviour whilst he was at it.

After sending his angry letter, Cobalt resumed trying to make a decision. The 'traditional' option was for mage-style gameplay, and for a few good reasons. For one Cobalt's favourite word- versatility- came up a lot with mages. It was somewhat famous that a high level wizard could perform every function a party would require on their own- save for detecting traps- in Dungeons and Dragons, something a rock tied to a rope could often do for you if you knew what you were doing.

Next up was raw, balls-to-the-wall firepower. Self explanatory, really, someone who can throw explosive fireballs like cartoon ninjas threw shuriken tended to outpace people limited to swords, bows, guns and other- more mundane- methods of offense in terms of sheer, raw damage per second, and the fact that magic defense was a tricky thing to engineer for, meaning few average schmucks really had much defense to magic attacks without also being mages themselves.

They could even 'CoDzilla' despite not being a Cleric or Druid, by layering on buffs until they were an immovable, unstoppable force of nature and just lay into bad guys in big physical assaults, smiting left, right and centre.

Cobalt felt like he'd had his choice made for him and started putting points into intelligence.

 **Quest Received! Fuck you, It's Magic  
Become a Wizard! Learn 20 spells, raise intelligence and wisdom to 100  
Rewards: 500,000xp**

Cobalt's eye twitched at the quest and it's description. "Well… I guess that settles that… God damn quests with their massive XP awards…"

Cobalt got to planning again. The biggest downside to playing a mage was the ramp-up time until they were almighty gods amongst men that made early game a nightmare especially if he tried to fly it solo, which made spellblades so tempting: easier early game for only a 'minor' sacrifice in late game. He'd have to figure out how to compensate for a lack of early combat ability with utility spells or by getting help.

Cobalt didn't really have a lot to do at that point, he needed skills and levels and solid statistical advantages as soon as possible. He had a maximum of a year, and chances were more than good that he didn't have that.

To say the task was daunting was like saying the titanic was waterlogged.

Cobalt marched through the forest, pistol raised and ready to deal with whatever he was about to face.

He hoped this bad idea didn't get any worse.

* * *

Alexander Myste stalked into Gareth's office, rubbing his temples and tossing a printout at his workmate.

"Gareth, what the hell is that?"

Gareth looked at the readout and nearly choked on his coffee "Don't look at me, man! Raven coded the Beowolves!"

Raven heard her name and stuck her head through the door, giggling like a mad schoolgirl. "It's so cute though!"

Gareth and Alex shared a look, knowing they'd invoke Raven's fearsome wrath if either of them tried to remove it

Gareth sighed and moved to the monitor with the prominent 'do not touch' sign hung from it. "In any case... that was from a test build for the horde generation mechanics. Meant to test individual groups of enemies before changing them to full enemies and running them through the logic tables I spent hours putting together. How did the mini Grimm get in the normal gameplay?"

Alex shrugged, leaning over Gareth's shoulder and hitting a few keys to call up the command console for Raven's machine. "Did you ask Aurum?"

"I'm about to- this entire version was never meant to get off my PC..."

Raven and Alex looked at him annoyed. "You're the one that convinced us to shove 'Cobalt' into my machine when we didn't even have a finished game ready."

Gareth frowned "I had a beta build ready to go at least. I have a whole month's worth of coding that would have fixed basically he first half of that 'document' he sent us, if it ever got uploaded. The idea of that stat system, for example…"

Gareth shuddered

Alex shrugged. "I'm not the one that made it."

Raven blushed and rubbed her neck. "In my defense, I don't know how RPG's are supposed to work."

"I'd suggest researching the topic next time, but I know you pumped it out in your lunch break that one time." Gareth said, patting her shoulder.

Their conversation was interrupted when the computer dinged, having received a response from the resident AI.

"Oh, Aurum, you bit-" Gareth was interrupted when Raven slapped the back of his head chastisingly.

"Language. And what did Aurum do?"

Gareth hit another button and a printout appeared "I know you don't speak game dev like me, but look at this, and tell me what you can translate"

Raven shrugged and looked it over, her face getting progressively angrier as she read it and looking practically livid by the end.

"I think she's jealous that we wanna make Cobalt her boss or something. That still doesn't excuse trying to kill him though."

Alex frowned. "Aurum tried to kill Cobalt?"

"Yeah. Enforced Ultra Hardcore difficulty before dropping him against an Ursa Minor with a dull sharpened stick as his only weapon. 'Here's a wooden dild- marital aid; go eff yourself'."

Raven stalked off, likely to scold her AI creation. "You two fix the rest, I'll deal with Aurum."

Alex and Gareth chuckled nervously at her frightening expression. "Yes ma'am!"

* * *

 **Some of you may be wondering, why the quick update?**

 **Well, really, it's because we were sitting on 1.75 chapters, and just had to put some finishing touches and some conclusions on this one before we felt it was in a publishable state. I personally wanted to try and get some more done, but Sara's talked me into an 'update if/when we get a chapter done' schedule instead of a weekly release like GfG v1.**

 **So, here's Chapter 2, which should hopefully set up a good chunk of Cobalt's plans. We'll be taking the story one step at a time, and try to keep Cobalt on his toes.**

 _We've had chapter one done for months now. Anyway, if anyone's interested in that discord group chat idea I had, feel free to PM us and we'll figure something out._

 _Until next chapter, this is Seraphima and Yoshtar, signing off._


	4. 3: A Challenge

Cobalt stared at the structure sitting in the middle of the woods. He was out of breath, out of ammo, shit outta luck with no good options, yet… this place…

Cobalt didn't know what caused the Alpha to hesitate, but the Beowolf pack wouldn't come within 100 metres of this place. He was pretty sure he wasn't in Forever Fall or the Emerald Forest, but he was pretty sure he was staring at ruins. Four pillars surrounding a pedestal with a large stone tablet etched with a number of runic patterns.

Cobalt, not knowing immediately what these were, used an age-old skill in the gamer's toolkit, and hit them with **Observe.**

 **Runic Shrine Tablet  
The entrance of a Challenge Shrine, these tablets are shaped from blood-imbued slate and carved with a runic inscription that have been inlaid with crystal blood, allowing it to maintain a magical resonance with an extradimensional space, set up to challenge all passersby by the ancient and powerful Sanguinem Order.**

 **This tablet denotes that the shrine within contains a challenge that the Mighty may overcome. To challenge the shrine, place a drop of blood to power the relay and lay your hand on the tablet.**

Cobalt's clothes were pretty soiled with hsi blood after he'd been attacked by that Alpha and its pack. Cobalt wiped his stained sleeve on the tablet and it began to glow with an eerie red light. Cobalt placed his hand on the tablet and he felt that he was suddenly elsewhere.

The Forest was gone, and Cobalt stood in a lobby, rune-inscripted stones that pulsed with magic in a steady rhythm in time with his heartbeat integrated with the stone of a large cave system. Underneath him was a large circle, looking like a waypoint of some kind and to the left side of the room was a fountain that seemed to run with a foul-looking black, oily substance.

On the far side of the room was a large Stone door. Seeing as he'd come here to challenge the shrine, he quickly made his way to the door and with some more use of **observe** , he quickly found the blood-activated locking sigil that keep the things inside from spawn-camping the lobby.

Cobalt jumped when he heard a voice resonate in his head, the power of the words leaving him rattled.

" _ **I am Pax Sanguinem. In the Wisdom of the Ancient Blood, I present to you my challenge."**_

Cobalt shook off the chills the invading voice had left him with, cautiously walking towards the door when text from Gamer popped up in front of him.

 _ **Sanguinem Blood Shrine of Wit:  
A minor test of skill**_

 _ **Objective: Arm Yourself**_

Cobalt glanced around and found that propped up in the corner was a sword, with a blade about a metre long, and no real guard, only a wooden setting and pommel to stop his hand slipping off the one-handed grip, Cobalt guessed it was a spatha of some sort, a late roman sword, longer than the gladius by far.

Leaning against the sword was a shield with a metal boss, rim and reinforcements, and leather over what he guessed was wood. Overall a very sturdy shield with some minor fireproofing to boot, in its heyday.

Both sword and shield were old and uncared for, the metal of the sword and shield had the faintest traceries of rust running along it, and a number of dents and chips in the shield's rim and sword's edge, leading him to believe they were well used by an idiot who hadn't taken them to get fixed before abandoning them. The old advice rang through his head, and he said it aloud to himself

"Fight with a broken shield, fight with a dented helmet, but if you want to live to see the sun rise tomorrow, never fight with a dull sword"

Cobalt armed himself with them all the same, something was better than nothing, and he was rather sure that there were any number of workshops catering to hutners that'd perform repair work if he was dead set on keeping grey-quality, level 1 newbie gear.

 _ **Objective: Enter the arena**_

The door unsealed itself and began to descend as Cobalt approached it with his new equipment. Cobalt was not a patient sort and despite his sense of foreboding,w as eager to get started. Once it finally would allow him through, Cobalt sneaked on by, climbing over the top of the door as it got low enough and was met with a large empty room with a runic circle over the center of the floor.

Entering the room, the door predictably closed behind him, and the runic circle descended. As the door thudded home and sealed itself, Cobalt saw what had boarded the Elevator.

It was a Beowolf grimm with white fur and blue eyes.

Cobalt was immediately on guard. The grimm was hostile, but not immediately so, instead slowly approaching him, growling, with fangs and claws bared.

Cobalt circled around his foe shield at the ready to receive whatever attack the beowolf would launch.

 _ **Objective: Complete your training  
Step 1 of 5: Sidestep**_

 _ **Execute a small hop to sidestep the Beowolf's lunge, then punish it.**_

The word Training caused Cobalt's eyebrow to rise, and a smile to creep its way across his face. Just what he needed.

Just as the tutorial text said, the Beowolf crouched slightly before lunging at him with claws outstretched. Cobalt dodged to the side with a quick hop as asked, and didn't hesitate to swipe the jagged edge of his sword across the wolf's armpit, before bringing it back around and attempting to rack up the biggest combo he could, sending sword strikes every which way. He would later admonish himself for using the sword as a particularly sharp club, like some sort of _videogame character_.

 _ **Objective: Complete your training  
Step 2 of 5: Backflip**_

 _ **You've pissed it off, dodge the flurry of swipes with a backwards dodge, then swoop in to punish it again.**_

Cobalt balked at the prospect, but he didn't have the time to really complain, so he moved with the intent of dodging backwards as the beowolf charged him with claws outstretched to either side, and Cobalt found that he'd leaned back until the boss of his shield was on the ground and hurled the rest of his body over that pivot.

The Beowolf's claws closed in on thin air, and now it was Cobalt's turn to lunge, surprised as he was that he'd performed a backflip. Cobalt lined up his sword and all but leapt at the Wolf with the intent to stab it through the heart.

The Beowolf recoiled and Cobalt attacked it like mad, swinging the sword wildly hoping to inflict as much damage as possible.

When he was forced away by the beowolf's recovery, he decided to check the damage he'd inflicted, as he didn't see much visible damage or any crippling injuries like that slash to the armpit or the stab to the chest should've been. **Observing** it, Cobalt saw that the wolf's details appear next to it. Its health was greyed out, and said 'Tutorial' instead of giving him any numbers.

Steeling himself, Cobalt read his next set of objectives

 _ **Objective: Complete Your training  
Step 3 of 5: Perfect Guard**_

 _ **Use your shield to bash the beowolf's attack out of the way.**_

The Beowolf moved in and rose its clawed hand in telegraphed heavy strike, trying to use its weight and strength to overpower Cobalt. Cobalt swung his shield arm and batted the blow aside, sending the wolf off balance as it whiffed its power attack, and letting Cobalt smack it around a bunch more before he caught the retaliation blow on his shield and stumbled back.

Cobalt made mental notes about the timing of the attack, and how he'd moved the shield to redirect the blow away.

The Wolf fell back and raised its arms forming a clumsy, but unmistakable guard, seeking to defend itself.

 _ **Objective: Complete your training  
Step 4 of 5: Power attack**_

 _ **Focus on your weapon, channel your strength into it, and use all your strength to launch a mighty attack that can crush through blocks and stun hapless foes**_

Cobalt stood at the ready, and made it look like he was ready to strike at any moment, as he focused, and found that he could feel the blad humming with energy- his energy. Preparing himself, he felt the sword's charge peak and he moved. The beowolf's guard was clumsy, but it attempted to counterattack, but Cobalt had moved against the possible counterattack, hitting the blow meant to smack his attack away head on and crushing through the defence.

This stunned the Beowolf and Cobalt only stopped long enough to read his objectives as they updated mid-conflict

 _ **Objective: Complete your training  
Step 5 of 5: End Him Rightly**_

 _ **Use your Finishing Move skill to end the fight  
Finishing Move requires an enemy to be stunned and prone, but is an instant kill. Shield Bash can be used to knock a stunned enemy prone.**_

Cobalt did as the objectives asked. He tucked his shoulder behind the wood of the shield and used it as cover as he launched forwards and shoulder-checked the Beowolf, lifting it off its feet and sprawling onto its back.

The Beowolf collapsed backwards, and Cobalt leapt into the air and delivered a two-handed plunging strike, feeling his sword sink straight through the beast's sternum and heart. The Wolf recoiled as Cobalt drove the air from its lungs, but it died too soon to do anything but whimper in pain.

Cobalt was panting hard as the adrenaline wore off and he pulled the sword from the creature's chest, planting his foot next to the blade and wrenching it free. As he rose, Cobalt felt the mirth bubbling up, and threw his head back to laugh with elation, to whoop and holler in the post-battle euphoria.

The loud thunk of a large, heavy stone mechanism clunking into place brought him out of his reverie, and he turned to investigate. A door to a large shrine glowed with crimson runes before sinking into the floor, Behind it was a large altar that Cobalt immediately deduced was the endgoal of the shrine.

Cobalt approached, eager to collect whatever was in the pot at end of this rainbow, be it gold, gear, macguffins or precious baubles.

Approaching, Cobalt found a man sitting cross-legged on top of the altar, his robes hanging loosely off his atrophied form. Cobalt wondered if he'd found a mummy given how it looked, and if Pax's message had been pre-recorded when Pax's voice boomed and echoed all around him, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

" **I am Pax Sanguinem. In defeating this challenge, you have proved the strength of your Wit. You have taken the first steps on the long journey towards your enlightenment. Find my Brothers and Sisters in their Shrines, beat the challenges within, and collect their blessings."**

Cobalt blinked as he felt the urge to kneel on the dias in front of Pax. He found the experience wildly disconcerting, and the dialogue cheap and cliche, but he was 1: a lore junkie with no hope of recovery and 2: not an idiot, and therefore would listen and learn as The Plot™ happened instead of being rude or calling him out.

Cobalt followed the urging and dropped onto one knee, head bowed respectfully as crimson runes started lighting up in black fire over Pax's robes.

" **In the Wisdom of the Ancient Blood, I present to you The Blessing of the Sanguinem."**

Cobalt shuddered as a crimson orb of blood hit his chest before soaking into his body.

" **May your blade be sharp and your blood potent."**

Cobalt furrowed his brow at Pax- about to ask what that was supposed to do- but noticed his body dissolving into crimson light before his vision went black.

* * *

Cobalt gasped as he came to, having collapsed in front of the shrine. He wondered if it was all a bad dream until he found a sword buckled onto his belt. Straight-edged with a triangular point and with a familiar pattern of chips and notches in the blade, and the small shield had the same pattern of rivets and scratches.

 _ **For defeating one of the countless Sanguinem Trials, you have gained a new level.**_

 _ **You are now level 8**_

 _ **The local area has been purified and sanctified. Vale Corruption at 95%, Grimm spawn rates decreased accordingly.**_

Cobalt blinked at the message, before his mind managed to parse the last line. Cobalt felt himself staring at the text with a slack jaw, stunned beyond words.

There it was. There was his endgame. Enough of these shrines and theoretically he could cleanse all of Remnant of the grimm.

He already knew that these shrines wouldn't get any easier: he stumbled across the level 1 shrine by sheer dumb luck. He'd have to learn how to fight, solve puzzles and most importantly, learn how to find these places.

Cobalt pulled himself up to try and reconnect to civilisation and figure out his next moves. He managed only a few steps before something barreled straight into him and knocked him to the ground. His head struck a rock as he landed and the world went black around him.

When he came to, Cobalt felt like a dwarf was using his head as an anvil to forge adamantium. Groaning, he fought the dizziness, the bright sunlight stabbing his eyes and the dark tunnel creeping along the edges of his vision as he attempted to stand, using a nearby tree for support.

Rolling over and pulling himself up, Cobalt was greeted by a notification

 _ **Forced Update complete, version updated from pre-alpha 0.0.3 to BETA 1.26.348  
Changelog is available in patch notes**_

"Are you okay?"

Cobalt stiffened and saw Team CFVY had found him. "I am now… we have to stop meeting like this."

"Why are you out here?"

"I was, uh…" Cobalt said, trailing off as he searched for an excuse before his brain managed to register something.

Patting around the 'tree' he was using, Cobalt realised that the tree had what felt like cloth instead of bark. Looking up, he saw Yatsuhashi, who had let Cobalt use him for support.

Cobalt yelped in surprise, and barked a quick apology, before a wave of dizziness threw off his balance and he wound up leaning on Yatsuhashi for support.

"Sorry, Big Guy, head's still spinning, I'm gonna have to impose on you a bit… anyone catch the numbers on that truck that hit me?" Cobalt said, looking to CFVY's team leader.

What he saw confused him, however, as a pair of large brown rabbit's ears towered above Coco's head

"...when did you become a faunus, Coco?" Cobalt asked in non-comprehension.

Coco blinked at him, not expecting that, before looking behind her, prompting a dawning realisation, before she stepped to the side, which let Cobalt see Velvet before she hid behind Coco again.

"Oh."

There was a long pause as both sides more or less waited for Cobalt to recover from his concussion.

Cobalt watched his status meter like a hawk, seeing the little stars icon indicating his **stunned** status effect go from three stars to two, coming with a marked improvement in his clarity, then down to one star, leaving him feeling more like the aftershocks of a wild party instead of having gone eight rounds with Dolph Lundgren with no mercy.

Deciding he could resume the Q&A Cobalt asked "So what are you doing out here?"

Coco pointed upwards and Cobalt saw the spires of Beacon Academy stretching above the mesa it stood on.

"Oh" was all Cobalt said.

"What are you doing out here?" Coco asked back.

"I was looking to train for my new job in the VPD, so I nicked off with a service handgun and a tin of ammo" Cobalt replied

Cobalt didn't know what he expected, but in hindsight, being laughed at should have been at the top of that list.

"You became a cop?!" Coco asked, holding back tears

"Yes"

Team CFVY redoubled their efforts in letting him know what they thought of that. Even Yatsuhashi was chuckling, and only Velvet- who looked mortified for some reason- wasn't laughing.

"Be that as it may, its a good way to lay low for now"

"Sure thing. Do you need help getting back to Vale?"

"An assist would be appreciated. I think I still have a bit of a concussion. What hit me anyway? My head feels like I got hit by a Semi."

Coco suppressed a laugh, and Velvet blushed and tried to hide behind coco.

"Ah, well, I'm not mad. You didn't do anything permanent, and if you can get me back to civilisation safe and sound, I'll call us even."

"Deal"

* * *

Raven curled up in her chair, holding her stomach as she laughed harder than she'd laughed in months and pushing away from the monitor in front of her to let her husband see Gareth's patchnotes.

"Okay, Okay, lemme read another one here… okay… boring… ah, here: 'Fixed the PhysX glitch that launched vehicles into low earth orbit if you hit both the brake and accelerator pedals simultaneously'." Gareth read out, rolling his eyes as Raven only laughed harder.

Raven managed to stop laughing long enough to point out one of her favorites to Alex. "F-F-Fixed a glitch that-" Raven paused as she giggled some more, prompting her husband to roll his eyes and continue for her. "A glitch that made Random NPC's unable to equip new wearable items, causing them to go about naked after attempting to change from default outfits."

Alex blinked, before grinning and chuckling slightly. "The one right after it has _got_ to be related. 'Fixed NPC's not reacting properly to the sight of other naked NPC's'. And finally, 'Fixed oversight causing NPC's to not care about being naked'."

Alex looked over at Gareth.

"It was late at night, I was running on six cups of coffee and my coding was shoddy" Gareth said defensively "That's my story, and I'm sticking with it"

"Dude, you forgot to make the AI care about clothes. Be glad I managed to fix Coco's equipment before Cobalt woke up…" Alex paused, thinking to himself. "... Maybe I could have left it a bit longer. Cobalt's reaction would have been pricele- OW!"

Alex rubbed his side where Raven had jabbed him. "Alex, Gareth, you're both perverts."

Gareth pointed a finger at Raven dramatically. "You would have thought it was funny too! Don't try to deny it!"

Raven coughed slightly, hiding her blush before gesturing back towards the patch notes.

"ANYWHO, getting back on track and keeping it in our pants, people" Alex said, "changed Dev console command after too many playtesters sang the final fantasy victory theme..." Alex stopped before looking towards Gareth. "And _why_ is the Dev Console accessible to anyone in The Game? I set up the Dev Whitelist for a reason."

"It was Alpha 7. I was still mostly putting basic physics and interactions in place."

"Dude… We make this game from the outside. Raven's the only one who's actually gone in the game. Why do we even _have_ an internal Dev Console?"

"So I can superbuff new dev characters after save wipes and attempt to test and balance endgame content."

Alex stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "... Gareth, _we do all our Dev work out here_. We don't need an internal Dev Console!"

Gareth looked sullen "...I wanted to cheat with an avatar, so I hid an easter egg."

Alex rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Next time, just preface it with that. Have you fixed the character stat system yet?"

"Most people tend to react badly when I mention that I'm a filthy casual; and Yes. I'm not sure why he got the Alpha Build. I had Beta 1.26 ready and rarin' to go. Just the standard 6 stat system we agreed on." Gareth reported "I double and triple checked that all the patches were applied and working properly, and all the critical systems matched exactly with the backup whilst Cobalt did that Shrine"

Alex smirked. "And then you had Velvet kick him in the head at the same time you forced the update. Nice cover-up."

"Yep. Took a bit of timing, I'll admit, and some manipulation of PID values… I don't like doing that, these things are damn-near self-aware and I don't like getting inside their head like that." Gareth said, looking uncomfortable

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Why'd you mess with Velvets AI? You could have just changed Cobalt's Character model for just long enough for her to kick him."

"...because changing a number is easier than- aaaand I just remembered that changing models is literally as simple as picking from a drop-down menu… correction: because I'm an idiot who should have thought of that." Gareth self-admonished.

Raven shook her head in amusement. "In any case, I'm kinda bored. Anyone want to help me try shipping Cobalt?"

Gareth and Alex both backed off a few steps, lest they be dragged into an inescapable matchmaking session.

"Philistines."

* * *

 _Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I certainly did, especially the Dev talk at the end. For anyone who's curious, I'm Raven, Yoshtar is Gareth, and Eaod2000 is Alexander._

 **Not our actual names, you understand.**

 _Also, We're gonna put a new poll up! It'll be for us to see who you (the fans) want to ship with Cobalt the most._ It'll include every single female character in RWBY. Every. Single. One. Obviously the poll is mostly for fun. There are some character we just aren't going to ever ship Cobalt with.

 **In the meantime… Well... Kiddlywinks, boys and girls… we have a slight… problem**

 _We realised that we had a lot of grand plans, and exactly zero timeframe to really execute them in._

 **Cobalt decorrupting the police force, for one… he can't exactly walk in on a dirty deal and then everything's fixed. It'll take time, more than the ~6 months Canon gives him before everything goes tits up. Then he has to train almost an entire force of honest, blue-uniformed heroes, which is no small task, and start to disrupt crime in Vale, at least starting to push both syndicated and otherwise organised crime out of Vale, alongside crackdowns on White Fang Domestic Terrorism.**

 _Then there's other stuff to do more with Gamer that we haven't revealed yet._

 **So we're gonna slightly fudge the first chapter. Instead of team RWBY helping him escape, we're gonna give Cobalt an extra year, and mention that it's a first year team CFVY that finds him in that bush under the Beacon medical wing instead. We'll make the changes to reflect this decision soon.  
Normally, I would be very concerned about giving a Gamer a year and a half to power up and prepare without sending God or Malkuth at him (those of you who have read The Games We Play should know who the latter is). How many MMORPG characters can you say **_**didn't**_ **go from slaying Rats to slaying "Glas Ghaibleann, the Destroyer of Worlds" in less than a year in-game time, even counting the shortened day/night cycle most games tend to have.  
Fortunately, we figure that the objectives mentioned earlier should keep Cobalt busy: It's hard to go out and slay level 160 Grimm in Vacuo if you're also busy putting out fires and taking down the [Vauge Italian/Irish mob name] crime syndicate in downtown Vale.**

 **Reviews are more than welcome y'all.**

 _And since I this has been asked a bunch: this fic is a rewrite of the OG Gaming for Glory. Sequels, if we attempt them, will likely be titled New Game Plus._


	5. 4: Picking Fights

"Thanks for the assist, guys." Cobalt said as he and CFVY reentered Vale.

"No problem" Coco said.

"Can I beg a favour?" Cobalt asked

"What is it?" Coco replied

"I hate this thing and need something that at least hurts when you shoot Grimm" Cobalt said, holding up his service pistol.

The poorly maintained .32 gunscroll with a now-cracked frame and screen caused team CFVY to cringe

"Hey, Velv, why don't you show him to that Gunsmith Beacon has contracts with. He should be able to hook Cobalt up with something good."

"What?! Why me?!" Velvet immediately demanded

"Because you were the one who kicked him in the face." Coco said

Cobalt froze up and stared at Velvet in shock, as Velvet shrunk further behind Coco.

"That was a _kick_?" Cobalt asked, bewildered.

Velvet shrank back, too embarrassed to say

Cobalt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose "y'know what? It doesn't matter. Just know it hurt, a lot, and that you should _really_ work on your PID."

Velvet nodded

"So, you know where this gun store is?" Cobalt asked

Velvet nodded again.

"Well lead the way." Cobalt said, indicating for Velvet to go ahead of him

"R-right… sure… this way."

* * *

"So… what am I looking at on a cop's salary. I'm gonna guess 'not a lot'." Cobalt said, ignoring the fact it was the same old Shopkeep staring at him disapprovingly as he perused the guns behind the glass

"No… I could pay for it though." Velvet suggested

"I- you would?" Cobalt asked

Velvet nodded

"Don't you have your own stuff to worry about?" Cobalt asked

"It's the least I can do."

Cobalt blinked whilst he processed that, and quietly chuckled "So you kick boys in the head and buy them shiny new guns. Well, if that's your icebreaker, I can only wonder what the rest of your dating scheme is"

Velvet turned bright red at the accusation before hammering her fist into Cobalt's shoulder, causing Cobalt to laugh despite how much it hurt.

Once Velvet calmed down, Cobalt looked through the display case, showcasing all sorts of fancy tech made for blasting grimm. More often than not, it was some sort of convenience item, like a scroll mixed in, fancy brand names declaring the artistic postmodern design.

Cobalt looked through the cases, looking for something that'd be a good fit for him. His experience told him that the fancier and more convenient to use something became, the more complex, fragile, and more prone something was to simply not working.

This was his gun, the small two kilogram block of various machined metal parts standing between life and death. Cobalt would brook no compromises on design, durability, functionality and reliability… besides, he had Gamer, it'd pick up the slack on the end of encumbrance and bulk.

Cobalt poured as much thought as he could into getting the right gun, weighing up his needs, pros, cons and realising he just needed a plain pistol.

He felt Velvet give him a strange look as Cobalt asked the Old Storekeep for a plain, solid handgun that was just a handgun.

Cobalt was lead to a side display case with several patterns, some were clearly remnant designs, some that he kinda-recognised from earth but couldn't put a name to if he tried… and a number of highly iconic handguns that he'd have been able to recognise anywhere, ranging from old WW2 early semi's to modern 'wonder 9's', even a Deagle-brand Deagle, and-

"Ooh, 1911." Cobalt said, eyeing the familiar design.

It would seem John Moses Browning's was just a little bit more legendary if his century-old designs were showing up in alternate worlds. It was a silver piece with a large red triangle in a black circle etched on the polymer sidegrips.

The Old Shopkeep brought it out for Cobalt, and Cobalt felt the weight in his hand. It was both lighter and heavier than he expected, a comfortable, reassuring weight. He felt around it for all the functions, feeling out how the gun itself worked and felt in his hands.

He liked it, and there was a certain quality to having a still-relevant-after-a-century design in his holster. He nodded at The Old Shopkeep, and was presented with a box of ammo, the spare magazine, the carry case and a lien reader.

Cobalt noticed something was off when he saw the ammo, however. Instead of the stock-standard .45 automatic colt pistol of the standard 1911a1, he'd been given 10mm ammo. Checking the gun, just in case, he saw it was called the "Delta Elite"- as it was proudly engraved onto the slide- proclaiming inside another triangle- the greek letter 'Delta' he realised- that it was a 10mm handgun.

Cobalt was surprised, having heard vague memes once upon a time mentioned in passing. Still, he was glad he had something faster than .45 and beefier than 9mm.

Velvet stepped in and slotted several lien cards into the reader, and like that she'd bought him the gun.

Cobalt nodded his thanks and packed up the gun, slotting it into the holster on his hip, resolving to buy one that actually fit later.

"Thanks again, Velv. I owe you one." Cobalt said

"No problem." Velvet replied

"If you ever need help with something, lemme know and I'll see if I can do something about it." Cobalt said

"I'll hold you to that"

Cobalt waved goodbye as Velvet returned to her team.

* * *

As Cobalt wandered the streets of Vale, he was struck with a new, terrible question: "What now?"

The obvious answer to him was "Get stronger". Remnant was an unkind place full of great, ancient evils, and he'd need to know his way around both his gun and his sword if he wanted to get ahead and be anything but a simple bystander.

He also needed to bone up on Vale law _hard_. He was a police officer now, and damn if he wasn't going to do a better job than any of them.

Cobalt was dragged out of his musings by sounds of distress, and he saw a pair of thugs shaking down some poor woman. Cobalt's sense of justice demanded action, and he took a few seconds before he realised he was a policeman now, and pushed himself into action.

He just wished his native accent hadn't slipped, more cockney than ever, when he strode over and shouted "Oi! What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!"

The two thugs turned and saw Cobalt, stood there with a rather battered VPD uniform as he cleared his throat and cursed himself out internally for the slip.

"What's it to you, asshole?"

"Looks to me like you're assaulting that poor lady right there." Cobalt said, trying to recover some sense of professionalism

"Nah, we're just having some fun."

Cobalt glanced around at the woman, who was clearly trying to get away "I don't believe you."

"What you going to do about it?" the mugger said

Cobalt unhooked the pair of cuffs on his belt in response.

"It's a two on one"

"We'll add threatening an officer to the list, shall we?"

The thugs moved and tried to overwhelm Cobalt, who didn't bother trying to draw his sword or gun. They were too close and would get their attack off first. Cobalt dropped his cuffs as he sidestepped the bull-rush and then backstepped a swing with a switchblade.

The man was off balance, and Cobalt, with his limited experience and having watched a boxing anime that one time, braced and delivered an uppercut to the bottom of the man's chin.

The man's head snapped backwards and he collapsed as his brain rattled inside his skull, causing his limbs to give out almost completely underneath him.

"...they call it the button for a reason." Cobalt mumbled, surprised.

The other Thug came charging at him, and Cobalt reacted, adrenaline slowing the thug to something he could deal with. Cobalt shifted and pivoted from the hips into a devastating counter-punch, using the man's own momentum against him.

Cobalt thought he heard a crack as the man's feet kept going despite his face being held up by an aura reinforced fist, putting him on the ground unconscious.

Cobalt stared for a long time in surprise, not believing he'd just won the fight.

"What the… hell?"

Cobalt snapped out of his stupor as he saw the first thug trying to push himself up, his limbs refusing to respond. Scooping up his cuffs, Cobalt pushed the man down before wrestling with his weak and unresponsive arms to force them into the cuffs behind his back, as Cobalt read him his 'Miranda rights'.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?"

"F-Fuck you!"

"I'll take that as a no, then." Cobalt said, dragging him up and sitting him in a corner before checking on thug #2.

Cobalt saw that he'd broken the man's nose, and it was bleeding profusely. Cobalt rolled the man on his side so he wouldn't inhale it and made sure he wasn't leaking anything clear before cuffing him as well.

Lastly, he checked on the victim herself, and asked "Are you okay?"

The woman who Cobalt noted had bright purple hair nodded. "You… actually saved me?"

Cobalt paused for a moment and sighed "It's sad that you even have to ask that."

"Thank you, officer."

"You're uh… you're welcome." Cobalt said, offering a hand.

The victim took his hand and Cobalt did his best to help pull her to her feet.

"Lisa Lavender, I can promise you I won't forget this." she said

 _ **Lisa will remember this**_

It took every ounce of willpower Cobalt possessed to not react to that text.

Cobalt nodded and watched Lisa go on her way, before stepping on the still-conscious crook's knees to keep him from getting up and calling it in.

Fiddling with his radio, Cobalt eventually opened a line. "Uh, Dispatch? This is Officer Jinn; I'd like to report two crooks with charges of assault, armed theft, resisting arrest, threatening an officer and assaulting an officer. Both felons are cuffed, one is unconscious with a broken nose, bleeding heavily, the other is… awake and spouting abuse."

The crook interjected by shouting "fuck you, man" as if to emphasize Cobalt's point.

"Requesting immediate pickup." Cobalt finished

"Wait, you actually made an arr- I mean, Sure thing… Jinn… We'll send a cruiser right away."

Cobalt waited for a quarter hour before the cruiser arrived, testing his willpower against the crook's, and trying to hold discipline as the crook shouted abuse at him and tried to get away. He came close to breaking character several times, before realising that'd just give the crook an idea of exactly how to needle him and his insecurities, so he did his best impression of the British Queen's Guard regiment and just kept imagining the silly bearskin hats they wore.

When they arrived, Cobalt handed them over, and he got pats on the back and invited to enjoy some donuts and coffee. Cobalt wasn't one to refuse comfort food right now. He'd had a pretty trying day.

* * *

Playing somewhat into a lot of tropes and cliches, Cobalt found himself at a donut shop drinking coffee and eating from a big box of cinnamon donuts.

"So, what was it like, bagging your first, Rookie?"

"I… it's hard to describe… I mean, the actual thing was terrifying, all action and reaction and stuff… but now that's kinda… simmered down? I guess that's how you could describe it… now there's that post-battle afterglow of 'I did the thing'... and piled on top of that is just… burnout from a stressful day."

"How so?"

"Went outside the walls, figured out I need a few days in a range to get used to recoil control. Sprayed everywhere like a freaking git and just pissed the beowolves off with the anaemic round." Cobalt recounted, before chugging half his coffee and finishing off his current donut.

Cobalt ignored the concerned glances as he raised his coffee to his lips to chug the rest when the unthinkable happened.

"Nobody move! This is a robbery!"

Cobalt froze stiff as a statue, eyes wide… shocked that anyone in their right mind would attempt to rob a _donut shop_ , of all places, particularly one _filled to the brim with cops_.

Cobalt slowly turned, and was equally surprised when no one else moved. The lady at the counter was dutifully handing over bills out the till, and not a single cop had done anything… the robber was armed, yes, with a gun even, but it was kinda their job to do something.

"Sheep led by a lion, Cobalt." Cobalt said to himself, and drew upon the special Original Character powers inherent in his million-times-folded donut steele.

The robber noticed the motion in his peripheral vision and flinched as the deep-fried sweet treat impacted his face. Cobalt was already in motion before the donut had even finished sailing across the room, ignoring the surprised shout his fellows gave him. Leaping over the bench for some cover, Cobalt sprinted across the shop and with adrenaline-fuelled power gave an almighty leap, jumping straight back over the counter, arms raised, legs tucked and bellowing a warcry.

Cobalt was treated to the wide-eyed look on the robber's face as he saw Cobalt looming over him like a stormfront made of pain and adrenaline-fuelled rage

The Robber didn't manage to get a shot before Cobalt landed on him in a flying tackle, sending the both of them sprawling. Cobalt recovered first, high as a kite on a deficit of blood in his adrenaline system and grappled the crook, punching his wrist to force him to drop the gun before forcing the man onto his stomach and straddling his waist to keep him from wriggling out from under him, wrenched his wrists together and used the second extra pair of handcuffs that he'd nicked from the stockpile that morning.

Standing up, Cobalt kept his foot on the man's butt, to ensure he wouldn't be getting away as he recovered, panting hard amidst the stunned silence.

"What the hell was that?"

"The 21 foot rule in motion" Cobalt replied, nearly collapsing as the adrenaline in his system calmed down "Just with a donut to throw him off cause you lazy fucks weren't doing shit."

Cobalt felt his knees give out and carefully lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the complaining crook's butt, seeing as it was the most comfortable place now, and kept the perp from getting away.

"It's childsplay really, twenty to one odds: one of you holds him from behind and the rest of you take turns punching him in the dick until he passes out" Cobalt added

Looking around him Cobalt saw the pillowcase the robber had been putting the money in and without looking lifted it to the countertop "Here, figured you might want this back"

Dimly, Cobalt heard someone calling Dispatch for a pickup for Cobalt's latest exploit.

"Where'd you learn to do that?"

"I'm crazy, and I watched an action movie or two where the guy threw his sunglasses at the other guy to gain the initiative." Cobalt said

Cobalt stayed there in the donut shop, only moving to allow them to take the crook away, feeling exhaustion creep in.

Closing his eyes Cobalt took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to let the stress out with the breath.

 **You have learned the meditation skill  
Take a moment to relax, and feel your body restore and rejuvenate its energy**

Cobalt noticed his meters consciously again, and realised his stamina was almost rock-bottom, and if he had to bet, he was regenerating from having almost no stamina left.

Seeing no detriment, Cobalt started controlling his breathing and meditation kicked in, boosting his stamina regeneration such that it refilled the bar at an actually decent clip… and by that, he meant that it'd take a minute or two to refil, like he'd expect it'd take several minutes for his body to rest and recover from strenuous exercise.

It was as Cobalt achieved a rested state and recovered some state of mental piece hat the clerk gave him a coffee from the management. Accepting with a nod and a tired 'thanks', Cobalt got to sipping the strong barista-coffee as a familiar woman with purple hair, armed with a microphone appeared leading a man equipped with a shoulder-mounted camera.

"Hey Lisa." Cobalt said, resigning himself to a terrible fate

Lis smiled at Cobalt and said "I get the feeling we'll get to know each other very well soon."

* * *

 **Heyo, sorry this took so long. Had a crisis of motivation and distraction right before we got the last few paragraphs completed.**

 _So many new fics were created. So many._

 **But, here it is. At long last. We're here. I know GfG v2 is an 'update whenever we get a chapter down' fic, but I still feel like we should apologise.**

 **That said, there is a bonus: The Discord Server is up, and invites will go to those who express interest.**

 _We've edited the poll as well, removing a bunch of choices that had 1 or no votes. Here's our current poll results._

1: Neopolitan -26 votes  
2: Ruby Rose -25  
3: Velvet Scarlatina -23

 **The runners-up so far are**

4: Malachite Twins  
5: Blake  
6: Amber  
7-8: Yang and Pyrrha (tied)  
9: Coco  
10-13: Penny, Sienna, Summer and Glynda

 **13 sounds like a strange number of runners up, but I wanted to get to 10, and unfortunately 10th spot's a 4-way tie.  
If you want your favourite choice to avoid getting 'pruned' and dropping out the running, and you haven't voted, do so now. Polls are still open and will be open until the Waifu is decided.**

 _We'll get chapter 5 up with updated poll results when we can._

 **Hopefully it won't be a… month-long wait this time… it's not the 29th, it's not technically 2 months yet!**


End file.
